Zephyros
If, however, I want to look deeply into something (such as my psyche) in order to understand the mechanics of how it functions, I may pull out all the stops (a pipe organ analogy) and go at it full steam with all the occult tools in my arsenal. It is somewhat like Freudian depth psychology as compared to simple behavioristic counseling. It is how I came to accept and understand the shadow side of my unconscious, thereby robbing it of it's power over my peace of mind.
I agree, and I also see it as a way of learning to recognize patterns, which helps not only in the contemplative aspect but also in the divinatory one. Symbols connect to one another whether it is a sparrow or the entire Tree of Life, and this can greatly help in gaining perspective on a given situation. As per your example, the Eight of Cups is in a pivotal position on the Tree, "causing" the Sun and Judgement, with the Tower and Hanged Man being the "causes" of the Eight. These cards in themselves tell the saga of your coat, what with realization of your goal (Tower intersecting Temperance), abandoning success (Eight), the harsh light of day revealing the deception of darkness (Judgement) and you deciding to keep it anyway (the Sun). You may also have suffered, being unsure of your success, and this is where the Hanged Man comes in. In this situation, I would pull a random Ten to see if your hope that the coat would indeed look black (Nines are too astral, you need cold hard Malkuth answers here!) would materialize.
Pulling this out of the proverbial behind here, but you get the picture. For anyone who's interested, this is the Tree of Life, and looking where it says "8" you can see all the cards I mentioned, connecting to it.
Anyway, that's basically it. If the occult is scientific study of the spiritual forces that move the universe, it can also be used to better understand cause and effect, thereby allowing you to plan ahead for contingencies, sometimes predict, and is all in all a powerful divination tool. It never precludes the emotional connection, what some might call "intuition," but it introduces it in a way that is far less prone to bias or wishful thinking. The Tree can be used to give a bird's eye view, and that's just a small example of anything having to do with occult study. Were I to invoke astrological attributions many more connections could be found, and LRichard's whole day could probably be mapped within reasonable amounts of probability. Or something.
Saying it is all intellectual or impractical simply isn't true, that's like the difference between a cold reading and a real one. And it isn't as if anyone ignores the card itself. The magic is there, and it's the same magic, just different.